So sorry that I haven't updated in a while. I'm currently juggling a few fics but I promise that I'm not giving up on this one. Anyways, let's not hear my excuses. Here's the next chapter
R&R please!
Disclaimer: Do I even need to say it anymore? I still don't own them...
The sun rose over the two hunters, climbing higher and higher into the sky as if it were running from the events about to take place below.
Sam stood tall next to the older hunter Bobby, dark green stretching out in front of them for miles. The looming silhouettes of trees stood like millions of hands reaching for the sky, clawed fingers grasping at the fleeing sun.
Dean was in the car. Walking still posed too much of a strain on his wounded chest, but since he insisted on being there anyways, he was confined to sitting in the car with his phone serving as his only form of communication. He demanded that Sam stay in touch via texting like Sam had demanded the other night, or else he threatened that he would drive the car through the damn woods if he had to. His exact words.
In order to appease his brother's worry, Sam agreed to Dean's compromise, and so here he was standing at the beginning of the Mngwa's trail with a flare gun in one hand, and his cellphone in the other. Bobby was currently armed with the flamethrower he had shown off yesterday, and the weapon was practically as big as the hunter himself.
"You ready, Bobby?" Sam's hand tightened around the flare gun as his shoulder flared up in pain again.
"I'm ready to deep fry this thing, but how bout you, Sam? I can tell your hurting." Bobby shifted slightly, his eyes worried.
"I'm fine. I just want this thing dead." Conversation closed, Sam lifted the flare gun and pointed it out in front of him as he started up the trail. He wasn't half-assing things this time. No, now that he knew what they were up against, he wasn't going to even give the Mngwa time to fully show itself before he was lighting it up.
Bobby huffed once in reply and followed after Sam at a slower pace, watching their six too.
Birds of every hue in the rainbow sat and watched the two hunters as they stalked deeper and deeper into the woods. Black, beady eyes followed their progress from the branches.
Sam's phone vibrated in his hand and startled him so bad that he actually jumped. He seconds away from flinging the vibrating object into the woods, but then realization clicked into place and he laughed at himself silently. He was so concentrated on their surroundings that he had totally forgotten he was even carrying his phone in the first place. Shaking his head, he looked down at the phone clenched tightly in his hand and flipped it open.
"Sam we had an agreement. It's been an hour. If you don't reply to this in the next minute I am so driving up there."
Sam rolled his eyes, typing, "Wait a second, geez. We're fine. The Mngwa still hasn't shown yet. I'll update you again once we've torched its bones."
The reply came in less than a minute. "You better. I swear if you don't..." Dean left the threat open for Sam's imagination.
"Pay attention, Sam. This thing can pop up at any second. It's not the time to be texting your brother." Bobby chided from behind him, but he had a point.
"Okay, okay. I'm putting it away." True to his word, Sam slipped the phone into his pocket. "I just wish it would show soon. I want to get this over with."
"Me too, ya idjit."
Sam smiled, glad that Bobby was there with them. The older hunter really was like a father to them, sometimes more so than their Dad ever was. A memory rose up of years ago, when Dean was supposed to go shooting with Bobby only to come back and tell Sam all about the great day they had at the park tossing a baseball. If Sam didn't love Bobby for anything else, he would love him for that one moment of normal he gave Dean.
Sam was rudely pulled from his thoughts when a deep growl ripped through the woods in front of him. He wouldn't forget that sound for the rest of his life, not after what happened the last time he heard it.
"Balls!" Sam heard Bobby shout a mere moment before a blur of gray was rocketing out of the underbrush and colliding with his chest. The force of the blow was enough to launch him back a few feet, his breath exploding out of his lungs when he landed painfully on the dirt ground.
When his vision cleared, he was met with the sight of curved teeth smiling wickedly at him and pink eyes staring fixatedly at his wounded shoulder, a gaping hole centered between them from the final bullet Dean got off. The smell of rotting flesh assaulted his nose and made him gag.
He didn't even have time to lift the flare gun before the Mngwa was biting deep into his flesh again, tearing a scream from Sam's lips as it ripped new holes in his already wounded shoulder. The pain was like nothing he had ever felt before. It was excruciatingly cold and it ran the whole length of his body, chilling him to the bone and slowing the flow of blood through his veins.
Through the haze of pain, Sam belatedly realized that the Mngwa's teeth most likely held some sort of poison, because no wound should be able to do what the Mngwa's teeth could.
Suddenly the weight crushing his chest was gone, and heat was flaring over him, warming his skin. After several seconds of pain induced confusion, he realized that the Mngwa was no longer biting him, even though the pain still lingered, and he realized that the heat was actually coming from Bobby's flamethrower.
Mind clearing, Sam managed to push up on his elbows, bringing the flare gun up and tracking the Mngwa's movements with it, ready to pull the trigger the moment it gave an opening.
He followed its movements as the Mngwa dodged around the flames that Bobby shot at it, dancing along their edge almost playfully. It would run in towards Bobby only to retreat again when the stream of fire got too close. Maybe it did have a weakness.
Bobby swung the hose of the flamethrower in a horizontal movement, forcing the Mngwa closer to Sam. Luckily, the path was wide enough that the move didn't have the trees bursting into flames. The last thing they needed at the moment was a forest fire on their hands.
Apparently the Mngwa decided that playtime was over then, because in the next moment it was lunging at Bobby with a speed not even Sam's hunter trained eyes could follow. Fear for the older hunter had his finger tightening on the trigger of the flare gun, sending a burning ball rocketing towards him, but for once luck was on their side.
Where the flare would have hit Bobby before, it instead hit the Mngwa square in the back when the beast leapt at him. Its gray fur immediately burst into orange flames and the Mngwa screamed in pain. Sam could tell because the creature screamed like a human. It was a completely human sound, and if anyone else were on that trail they would have thought a child was screaming, because that's what it sounded like. It was the most horrid sound he had ever heard.
With its fur burning, the Mngwa leapt away from Bobby, hate filled eyes glaring at them before it darted away into the forest.
"Damn. We can't let it get away, Bobby. Go! I'll be right behind you." Sam reassured as he struggled to stand.
"You better be, kid." Bobby hastily replied, already taking off after the Mngwa.
After a few failed attempts at standing, Sam finally managed to find his feet and he stood up from the bloodstained ground. Tossing his used flare gun in the dirt, he pulled the second one from the waistband of his jeans and took a shaky step forward only to find himself on the ground again.
The pain in his shoulder was causing a sweat to break out on his forehead, and the poisoned bite was so cold it was burning now.
Getting his arms underneath him, he pushed up again, his wounded arm buckling underneath him, but he still managed to get standing again. Biting his lip to help with the pain, Sam stepped off the dirt path and into the forest, picking up his pace until he was jogging after the direction that Bobby and the Mngwa had disappeared in.
Broken off branches and crushed leaves marked the path they took, and Sam stumbled along it, hoping that they hadn't gone too far.
Twenty minutes of staggered running later, there was still no sign of Bobby or the Mngwa and he was pretty sure that he had lost their trail.
Pulling his phone out of his pocket with shaking hands, his head swimming with sudden nausea, he blearily typed what he hoped was a coherent sentence to Dean. Not a minute later, his phone buzzed in answer. Obviously Dean had nothing else to do other than stare at his phone until he got a text.
"What do you mean you lost Bobby? You're saying that you're out there alone in the forest without Bobby and a pissed off Mngwa is somewhere out there with you? I don't think so, Sammy. Get back to the trail. I'm driving up there."
Sam struggled to type another reply. He was seriously feeling ill now, and chills were racking his body despite the heat. "Don't think I can, Dean. The Mngwa got me again. Not feeling too hot right now."
He had barely sent the message when his phone was buzzing again.
"It got you again? Dammit, Sam. Seriously, get your ass back to the trail. We'll come back later."
"No. Not leaving Bobby." Sam typed back in reply, ending the conversation by snapping the phone shut and putting it back in his pocket.
He looked around the forest tiredly, hoping that Bobby would just miraculously pop up out of nowhere. The surprising thing was that he did. One moment Sam was alone and the next he wasn't. Bobby came sprinting from the woods, running faster than Sam had ever seen someone of that age run. The flamethrower was gone, probably abandoned in favor of speed.
"Sam! There you are, boy! Hurry up! That things coming back this way and it isn't happy." Bobby yelled as he ran past Sam.
Sure enough, about a second later crashing from ahead signaled the Mngwa's return, and an angry roar had Sam spinning around and stumbling after Bobby.
Trees raced past him at a sickening pace, their colors blending together dizzyingly. Vertigo assaulted him, almost dropping him to the ground again, but pure instinct was keeping him running now. His vision swam dangerously, and for a moment he thought he was going to pass out as his sight darkened.
His foot caught on a stone then and succeeded in tripping him, slamming him into the ground. It was just his screwy luck that he landed on his bitten shoulder.
Frigid pain shot up and whited out his vision, stealing his breath. He would have screamed if he had enough air to, but since he didn't, he lay on the ground and panted instead. He didn't know how long he stayed like that, but when his senses finally returned to him, he noticed that the crashing noises had stopped and silence now fell over him. Opening an eye, he peered around his surroundings, hoping that the Mngwa had just passed him by.
If he ever got that lucky, he'd win the lottery.
His blue-green eye landed on gray. It filled his field of vision. Slowly looking up, he met angry pink orbs that glared down at him with sick satisfaction spinning in their depths.
The Mngwa made to bite him again, its jaws opening and lowering over him again, but this time Sam was faster. With a speed born from fear, his arm shot up and he shoved the flare gun into the Mngwa's mouth, pulling the trigger.
The flare exploded in its jaws and fire licked out, eating at the fur on the Mngwa's face. It screamed in pain again, rearing back and shaking its head like a dog. Broken shards of ivory teeth dropped from its mouth to land on the ground in front of its face.
Sam pushed to his feet while the beast was distracted and watched as the flames started melting the skin on the Mngwa's face. It turned outraged eyes on him and took a step towards him, mouth opening to reveal broken fangs and a burned tongue.
"You. A sheep. A pathetic sheep dares to kill me? Dares to do what no other has ever done? The sheep who brought me here…he promised me this land…he said no hunters would come so long as I killed who he said to kill…I curse…you…sheep. You will…all die…horribly… stupid sheep." The Mngwa took one more step towards him before collapsing on the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.
Sam stood frozen in shock as silence settled over the forest again. Even the birds were silent; the only noise that could be heard was from the crackling fire as it continued to eat up the remains of the Mngwa.
So someone had brought it here, and not only that, but they were telling the Mngwa which people to kill? The news surprised Sam, and he decided that he should probably get back to the trail and the Impala before he collapsed, so that he could tell Dean what he learned.
Turning drunkenly, Sam started back towards the trail, following the obvious direction Bobby had run in as the sun began to set on the horizon, apparently deeming it safe to return now that the Mngwa was dead.
()()()()SPN()()()()
Headlights broke through the line of trees, illuminating his path towards the dirt trail. Dean had obviously decided to live up to his word and drove up the dirt path like he had threatened. Sam was secretly grateful for that fact as he wasn't sure if he could have made it all the way back down the trail anyway.
Night was falling and the first few stars were just starting to appear in the sky as he finally stepped out from the woods and onto the path once again.
"Finally! God, Sam, were you planning on sleeping out here or something? The Mngwa is still out there somewhere and you said yourself how much better it gets at hunting at night. Hurry up and come over here." Dean's worried voice came from the big black car that stood in front of him.
He blinked sluggishly. "No, D'n. Mngwa s' dead. Killed the…the bitch. S'okay." He slurred, eyes drooping.
"Sam? Sammy? You okay? Come here, Sam. We're gonna get you back to the motel, alright?" Dean's voice sounded like it was coming from the end of a tunnel.
Sam blinked again and he tried to take a step forward, but his legs could no longer support his weight, and he fell to his knees in the dirt. He was distantly aware of his brother and Bobby shouting his name, but he was in pain and tired, and the ground was looking better than any bed at the moment.
He heard footsteps racing his way, but he was too tired to see what was running towards him. Instead, he pitched forward, not even caring that he was going to fall face-first into the dirt. He never did though, because before he could fall, strong, familiar arms were grabbing him and holding up. Whispered words of comfort were the last thing he heard before the darkness swallowed him up and the pain finally disappeared.
I'm thinking maybe one or two more chapters after this. Thanks to all of you who are reading this story, and thanks for the positive reviews. It really makes me think that maybe I don't suck at writing lol. So anyway, let me know what you think~Thorn